San Onofre

May 6, 2016 (San Diego) – California Attorney General Kamala Harris, who is running for the U.S. Senate, let the statute of limitations run out without filing charges over secret meetings in Poland between a Southern California Edison executive and then-president of the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) Michael Peevey. The secret meeting appeared to be illegal and instrumental in formation of a deal that forced ratepayers to foot the bill for billions of dollars related to the San Onofre nuclear power plant settlement.

“What Kamala Harris is doing is like a copy who witnessed a bank heist and did nothing,” Charles Langley, public advocate at Public Watchdogs, told East County Magazine.

But Michael Shanes, San Diego Consumer Action Network, defended Harris' actions. In an e-mail to ECM, he wrote, "...there was no criminal activity and Harris did the obvious by declining to press charges."

February 12, 2016 (San Diego)--A San Francisco Superior Court Judge has ruled that secret e-mails between Michael Picker, the President of the California Public Utilities Commission, the Governor's Office and Southern California Edison must be made public.(Read the order.)

December 30, 2015 (San Diego) –California Attorney General Kamala Harris’ office may file criminal charges against Michael Peevey, former president of the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), over back-room dealings concerning a settlement deal over the shutdown of the San Onofre nuclear facility.

A sworn affidavit by Specia Agent Reye Diaz with the Attorney General’s office in late September and recently unsealed reveals that Diaz found “probable cause to believe” that Peevey and Southern California Edison vice president Stephen Pickett “conspired to obstruct justice” by knowingly engaging in illegal private communications to craft a shut-down deal advantageous to Edison, but disadvantageous to other interested parties.

November 7, 2015 (San Diego) – On November 3rd, the utility fraud attorneys at Aguirre & Severson filed an action in Superior Court seeking to prevent construction of the world’s first beach-front nuclear waste dump at San Onofre, or what critics call the “most irresponsible nuclear dump ever,” according to a press release issued by the attorneys, who filed the suit on behalf of Citizens Oversight.

The California Coastal Commission is chartered to protect our state’s coastal resources. But on October 6 approved the dump just 100 feet from the beach near San Onofre State Park in San Diego County to hold nuclear waste that remains toxic for thousands of years. Wastes would be stored in thin-walled steel casks guaranteed by the manufacturer to last only 10 years, though the Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved them for up to 20 years of use. Salt water spray soaking casks could result in even earlier corrosion, yet there is no plan to remove casks even after 20 years. By then, the casks, each weighing 400,000 pounds, are apt to have degraded to the point where moving them safely would be nearly impossible, a press release issued by plantiff's attorneys contends.

Attorney Mike Aguirre called the Coastal Commission’s unanimous vote “an outrageous departure from its chartered responsibilities and the California Coastal Act,” adding, “We want the court to revoke Southern California Edison’s permit to pollute, and force Edison to find a safer location.” The suit seeks revocation of the permit for the dump.

September 26, 2015 (San Diego) – An investigation by KNSD-TV Channel 7 , the NBC affiliate in San Diego, has dropped a bombshell regarding efforts to cover-up lax handling of nuclear waste and radiation leaks at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Stations. Get the full report and the confidential documents here.

NBC’s investigation found high radiation levels endangered Southern California employees in trailers, including radiation levels so alarming that Nuclear Regulatory inspectors at times refused to perform routine radiation surveys. A contaminated steam generator taken from a reactor exposed workers for 10 days, a Nuclear Regulatory Commission report form 1981 revealed.

Hundreds of pieces of contaminated radioactive equipment were stored on both sides of Interstate 5, which bisects the San Onofre nuclear waste dump now under construction following shut-down of the facilities. Some were openly exposed to weather.

September 23, 2015 (San Diego's East County) -- East County Roundup highlights top stories of interest to East County and San Diego’s inland regions, published in other media. This week’s top “Roundup” headlines include:

September 17, 2015 (San Diego) - San Diego County’s Board of Supervisors made history today. Californians have never voted on whether to demand the Department of Energy remove nuclear waste. As San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station is decommissioned, a toxic waste dump is being built 600 feet from the Pacific Ocean, and roughly the same distance from the I-5. Unless some action is taken, 1,400 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel will be stored there. The Board of Supervisors voted 4-0, to “add to the County’s Legislative Program support for legislation that would remove and relocate outside of the San Diego region the spent nuclear fuel stored at the decommissioned San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station.” San Diego BOS Says NO Spent Nuclear Fuel.

August 7, 2015 (San Diego) – Southern California Edison could face up to $34 million in sanctions for violating a ban on backdoor communications with state regulators over the San Onofre closure. Those are the findings of California Public Utilities Commission administrative law judge Melanie Darling, the San Diego Union-Tribune reports.

Darling will determine on August 20th whether or nor to hold Edison in contempt. Her ruling faults Edison executives Ronald Litzinger and Stephen Pickett for omitting facts from prior testimony about secret meetings with former CPUC chair Michael Peevey, including meetings at a posh hotel lin Poland.

April 17, 2015 (San Onofre) - A federal judge has ruled that a lawsuit filed by Citizens Oversight on behalf of ratepayers challenging the San Onofre settlement agreement should be heard in state court, not federal.

March 23, 2015 (San Diego’s East County) - The lives of more than 8 million Californians may have been put at risk, when the steam generators at San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) malfunctioned. The subsequent California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) investigation failed to probe into the extent to which Southern California Edison (SCE) was responsible for the facilities “design errors.” Now the California Assembly Committee on Utilities and Commerce is calling on the CPUC to investigate the SONGS settlement.

November 16, 2014 (San Diego’s East County) –Citizen's Oversight and the law firm of Aguirre & Severson have filed a Federal lawsuit against two top public utility officials and Southern California Edison (SCE) for allegedly violating the constitutional rights of SDG&E ratepayers and SCE ratepayers by taking over $3 billion without just compensation.

July 5, 2014 (El Cajon)-- Please take a look at this video presentation I created to be presented to the CPUC. http://youtu.be/2umrwqLz_MI

The proponents of the $3.3 billion settlement proposal have met with the CPUC commissioners and their advisors in private meetings. They would not allow me to make this power-point presentation at the recent public meeting. However, we are allowed to have private meetings of the same length as those granted to the proponents.

May 8, 2014 (San Diego)--California Senator Barbara Boxer and four other U.S. senators have sent a letter to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission urging that stronger emergency regulations and security steps be taken at closed nuclear power plants where tons of spent radioactive fuel is stored.

March 27, 2014 (San Diego)—After the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Stations (SONGS) were shut down in 2012 due to faulty steam generators, San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) and Southern California Edison (SCE) continued to charge ratepayers for the costs associated with replacing those generators. Edison later announced permanent decommissioning of the nuclear facility in June 2013 due to serious safety problems.

Ratepayers will be receiving refunds from SDG&E and Edison for those charges, if a joint settlement agreement announced today is approved by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC). The settlement was reached SCE, the CPUC Office of Ratepayer Advocates, and The Utility Reform Network (TURN).

March 8, 2014 (San Diego's East County) - The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) will soon make a decision on how to replace the power from San Onofre. This is a decision with consequences for generations to come. The choice is local clean energy such as rooftop solar, energy efficiency, and conservation or natural gas power plants, i.e., fossil fuel generation. Local clean energy fights climate change, doesn’t pollute our air, already supports hundreds of well-paying local jobs, and lowers electricity bills. Natural gas power plants ramp up greenhouse gases, worsen air quality, average only 10-20 permanent employees, and raise electricity bills for all of us because they are funded by ratepayers and cost anywhere from $1 billion to $5 billion each. And we are shackled to these monuments of the past for decades.

September 29, 2013 (San Diego) – On Tuesday, October 1st, the California Public Utilities Commission will hold hearings in San Diego on who should pay for costs of the now-closed down San Onofre Nuclear Generation Stations – ratepayers or utility companies. The hearings will be held from 2-5 p.m. and again from 6:30-9;30 p.m. at the Al Bahr Shriners auditorium, 5440 Kearny Mesa, San Diego.

The Coalition to Decommission San Onofre plans to hold a press conference outside the site at 1 p.m. In the evening from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m., members of the Overpass Light Brigade will be outside the hearing to draw attention to ratepayers’ concerns.

September 4, 2013 (San Diego) – On the heels of a hefty rate increase that took effect September 1st, SDG&E wants ratepayers to pay for $808 million in costs of decommissioning the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Stations. Ratepayer advocates, meanwhile, say ratepayers should receive a refund for charges assessed when the nuclear facility was off-line for more than a year before being shut down permanently.

The California Public Utilities Commission will hold two hearings on Tuesday, October 1 at 2 p.m. and again at 6:30 p.m. Both will be held in the Al Bahr Shriners auditorium, 5440 Kaerny Mesa Road, San Diego 92111. The commission will consider whether or not ratepayers should be charged for the decommissioning costs, as well as whether ratepayers should receive refunds for charges assessed while the nuclear facilities were offline for more than a year before the shut-down decision.

Who should pay for San Onofre fiasco? The answer is obvious. Shareholders collect dividends while ratepayers pay tens of millions of dollars a year for a defunct nuclear plant. It's time for the PUC to step up.

There may be lots of questions yet to be answered about Southern California Edison's permanent shutdown of its San Onofre nuclear plant, but here are a couple about which there's no doubt. Who's responsible? Edison, 100%. Accept no argument that it did the best it could in overseeing a $700-million generator replacement project, but accidents happen. This wasn't an accident: It was the product of what Edison claims was its rigorous oversight of contractors.

June 16, 2013 (San Diego) -- Citizens' Oversight, an organization that encourages citizens to take an active role in oversight of their democracy, submitted a demand letter to the California Public Utilities Commission on June 11 alleging that the CPUC violated open meeting laws by halting the group’s representative, Ray Lutz (photo, left), from videotaping a recent public meeting on the San Onofre nuclear plant held in San Francisco. The watchdog group’s letter seeks removal of the CPUC’s administrative law judge from the proceedings and other remedies.

Martha Sullivan with the Coalition to Decommission San Onofre said, "It was disheartening to see the CPUC judge presiding over this investigation of multi-billion dollar regulated utilities be more concerned with their privacy than allowing the Southern California public to observe the evidentiary hearings."

June 9, 2013 (San Diego’s East County) – As ECM reported on June 7, the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Stations (SONGS) will be shut down permanently. Reactions locally range from celebration among activists pushing for the closure to concerns over stored nuclear fuel, job losses, and a new bill that could ramp up pressure for approval of other energy projects including large-scale wind and solar projects in East County.

June 7, 2013 (San Onofre) – Southern California Edison (SCE) announced today that it will permanently decommission both reactors at its troubled Onofre nuclear generation plant. (SCE has made this decision due to the uncertainty brought by the increased requirements for safety from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).

May 18, 2013 (San Diego) – In a rather unexpected rejection of Southern California Edison’s efforts to restart the shuttered San Onofre nuclear power plant north of San Diego, the Atomic Safety Licensing Board (ASLB) ruled today that the two reactors can not go back online before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) holds a formal license amendment proceeding with full public participation.

A three-judge panel of the ASLB granted a petition from Friends of the Earth, an environmental organization, asking the NRC to require Edison to undergo a license amendment process before a judge, including public hearings, sworn testimony from expert witnesses and rules of evidence.

March 14, 2013--(San Diego’s East County)--East County Roundup highlights top stories of interest to East County and San Diego’s inland regions, published in other media. This week’s top “Roundup” headlines include:

ECM Editor's note: A report released Friday by the Nuclear Regulatory Agency raises new questions over how much SDG&E, Southern California Edison and Mitsubishi knew about design flaws before installation of tubes that later failed. Two Senators raise grave concerns, suggesting public safety across our region was knowingly put at risk.

February 21, 2013--(San Diego’s East County)--East County Roundup highlights top stories of interest to East County and San Diego’s inland regions, published in other media. This week’s top “Roundup” headlines include:

February 14, 2013 (San Diego) – In a letter sent to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission on February 8, San Diego Mayor Bob Filner urged denial of Southern California Edison’s request to restart Unit 2 at the San Onofre Nuclear Generation Station for five months at 70% as a test to see if similar problems that caused failure of a steam generator at Unit 3 would occur.

Mayor Filner stated bluntly, “The NRC has previously determined that both Unit 2 and Unit 3 steam generators had similar serious design flaws and errors in the computer models used for design. The restart of Unit 2, even at reduced power, is a dangerous experiment that threatens the safety of the 8.2 million Southern California residents living within a 50-mile radius, including much of San Diego.”

February 14, 2013--(San Diego’s East County)--East County Roundup highlights top stories of interest to East County and San Diego’s inland regions, published in other media. This week’s top “Roundup” headlines include:

Safety Advocates to Rally and Hold Press Conference before Public Meeting on San Onofre nuclear facility Feb. 12 in Capistrano

Feb 11, 2012 (San Onofre)– Experts and oversight groups say they are astonished by the proposal by Southern California Edison to restart the Unit 2 reactor and run it at 70% capacity, putting millions of residents at risk of another emergency shutdown and radioactivity release to the environment, or worse.

A rally and press conference in opposition to restarting the San Onofre nuclear plant will be held at 4:00 p.m., Feb. 12, just prior to the 6:00 p.m. public meeting conducted by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) at the Capo Beach Church, 25975 Domingo Avenue, Capistrano Beach, California.

Edison and the NRC are facing challenges to restart from a number of directions:

February 7, 2013--(San Diego’s East County)--East County Roundup highlights top stories of interest to East County and San Diego’s inland regions, published in other media. This week’s top “Roundup” headlines include: